Hereditary bias

by Scott Tyrer

Working the bar one night and this guy comes in that I’ve seen before a couple of times, he tends to be a little bit loud and garish, taking the notoriety of being part of the bar ‘scene‘ too far, we all know the type. What gives him away even more is that he’s a bartender, albeit part time but very, very keen. He described himself to me as a budding mixologist which instantly made me forget his foibles and take a shine to him, after all passion is definitely something that should be nurtured in anybody ‘budding’ to be anything.

Now this isn’t an isolated incident, I’ve experienced this loads of times before and nearly every time they all say pretty much the same thing when I try suggesting a Bacardi daiquiri, its one of those great drinks that’s often overlooked, “Bacardi is shit“. 

Now I don’t have a problem with peoples own opinions being expressed in this way, what I don’t like is the fact that it’s probably not an opinion that’s born out of any kind of comparative tasting. It’s far more likely that its something they’ve heard from someone they respect and have assimilated it into their own repertoire of opinions. 

The idea of hereditary bias, probably not the best title for it, came about while we were discussing which was to be our house gin, and Bombay sapphire was mentioned as an option but my opinion of the brand was less than flattering and I tried to dismiss it. Now when we started developing Bibis we always agreed that from start to finish that we would question everything, including our own opinions. And it was then we realised that I had no real opinion of my own save for that of the guy who had trained me 6 years previously. 

From there I did a comparative blind tasting, the results were surprising to say the least, of all the gins we had at the time Bombay sapphire ranked quite highly giving me something of an epiphany. Thus leading to my disdain for any product to be simply dismissed as ‘shit’. Especially in an industry that’s so strongly based on the subjective, if it were only about the good and the bad in the eyes and mouths of the experts, then the bad would cease to exist instead of dominating the market to the distaste of the falsely opinionated ‘professionals’. 

All in all I think we owe it to any successive generation of bartenders to be mindful of how we train them, with the best kind of training being the type that gives someone their own opinions an not just those handed down from generation to generation.